To better understand the energy habits of its low-income customers, Entergy New Orleans plans to begin rolling out a new pilot program in December that will put thousands of so-called "smart" meters at the homes of participants, which, they say, will provide a chance to monitor and control their power usage -- as well as give them an incentive to save money by turning off appliances or turning up the thermostat on their air conditioning.

Photo courtesy EntergyEntergy will roll out a program in December that will put thousands of "smart" meters in area homes.

Some qualifying customers participating in the SmartView pilot are eligible for rebates and monthly bill credits throughout the 18-month study.

Details of the program, approved by the New Orleans City Council earlier this year, were presented at a public hearing Tuesday on the company's long-term plans for providing reliable and cost-effective power supplies for customers in Orleans Parish.

For their part, Entergy officials plan to use the project to gather information on how customers respond to the different technologies, and that information will then be used as the company decides whether to introduce the program to more customers, said Melonie Hall, director of customer service for the utility.

"The way that customers embrace this is very much going to dictate how viable that solution is in the future," she said.

The program represents a renewed focus on using a demand-side strategy, geared toward affecting energy use by altering customer behavior, which Entergy officials believe can provide real savings while helping reduce community demand.

Under the program, Entergy will put about 7,400 "smart meters," which are placed outside the home, throughout the city, with four different cross-sections of the program:

Besides monitoring their energy use from outside their home, 2,400 customers will be able to go online to track their daily use.

In addition to the smart meter, and the option for logging online, 3,600 customers will have an in-home display. Then, of that, 400 customers will be eligible to receive a peak-time rebate, meaning that Entergy will give those customers a credit to their bill for reducing their load during the peak use times, for about 24 cents per kilowatt hour.

Four hundred customers will have a smart meter as well as a smart thermostat, which will allow Entergy to cycle off the customer's air conditioning unit for up to 20 minutes per hour, for no more than three consecutive hours in a day, during the course of a month. Participants can elect to override that feature twice a month, and as long as they don't go over that limit, they will receive a rebate for $12 off their utility bill at the end of the month.

One thousand customers, serving as the control group, will have just the smart meters.

Hall said the control group is a necessary part of the program.

"You don't want to assume these programs aren't working because customers are using a lot of electricity, or assume they are working because we're having a mild summer," she said. "You want a control group in place so you can determine what happens when you're not doing anything, and make comparisons based on the different technologies, the different rate structures that have been put in place."

To be eligible for the program, a total annual household income for a single customer cannot exceed $33,520; $38,240 for a two-person home; or $47,840 for a four-person home, with the scale tiered up to a household with 12 members.

Stressing that the success of the program will hinge on making customers aware of the equipment, Entergy said it plans to hold 45 classes next spring to train participants to use the equipment, and it will provide an instruction manual and reference guide and a dedicated calling center to answer additional questions.

To get to that point, Entergy has enlisted several nonprofit organizations, including the New Orleans Council on Aging and Total Community Action, to help recruit participants and spread the word about the program. The company plans begin installing the meters in February.

Entergy New Orleans received a $5 million federal grant to cover about half of the pilot project's projected cost, and the company will be allowed to recoup the rest of its expenses through its normal customer bills.

Elsewhere across the state, Cleco Corp. is waiting for word from the Louisiana Public Service Commission to start installing smart meters for its 277,000 customers, spokeswoman Robbyn Cooper said Thursday. The Pineville-based utility wants to put $52.9 million of its own money, and a $20 million federal stimulus grant, into the meters.

Meanwhile, at the recent public hearing, Hall said customer input will be crucial to the success of the project.

"Unless the customer participates and makes some of these changes, then it's going to be very difficult for us to realize those opportunities," she said.

Richard Thompson can be reached at rthompson@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3496.